Park Rx America Featured in TIME Magazine!

A prescription you can't fill at the pharmacy

By Jamie Ducharme

Dr. Robert Zarr, a pediatrician in Washington, D.C., often prescribes therapies that don't come in a bottle or a pill pack. They're redeemable only outdoors, in the fresh air of a local park. These "nature prescriptions" - spend an hour each week playing tennis, for instance, or explore all the soccer fields near your home - might sound whimsical. But Zarr is serious about his scripts, which are recorded in his patients' electronic health records.

"The paradigm shift in the way we think about parks: not just as a place to recreate, but literally as a prescription, a place to improve your health," says Zarr, who writes up to 10 park prescriptions per day. In 2017 he founded Park Rx America to make it easier for more health professionals to write park prescriptions for patients of all ages, particularly those with obesity, mental-health issues, or chronic conditions like hypertension and Type 2 diabetes.

Park Rx America Featured on NBC's Nightly News!

A dose of nature: doctors prescribe a day in the park for anxiety

by Shamard Charles, MD

For many patients, like Lauren Huddle, 31, a big dose of Mother Nature is exactly what she needs after a stressful day.

"I have pretty bad anxiety and depression," said Huddle of Bellingham, Washington. "And I don't do well with pharmaceuticals, so my husband Nate would actually tell me all the time, 'just go outside, you'll feel so much better.'"